Intellectual History, Metaphysics, Philosophy

Aristotle and Augustine on Being, Truth, and Logic: Part Three

by Dave Seng

Part one can be found here.

Part two can be found here.

The law of noncontradiction holds primacy in another way as well. Aristotle believes that the law of noncontradiction is self-evident and it must be assumed before any other study, or science can get started:

For a principle which every one must know who knows anything that is, is not a hypothesis; and that which every one must know who who knows anything, he must already have when he comes to a special study. Evidently then such a principle is the most certain of all; which principle this is, let us proceed to say. It is, that the same attribute cannot at the same time belong and not belong to the same subject and in the same respect. (524)

The law of noncontradiction and the resulting axioms of logic are self-evident, just as being is the first thing one experiences when waking up in the morning, and the first thing a baby experiences when he or she is born. Being is undeniable, and so are the laws of logic. (Even Descartes, with his systematic doubt, ultimately concludes that being can be known.) Aristotle believes that the law of noncontradiction “is the most certain” principle one can know and, in fact, is prior and foundational to all other knowledge and learning. It is important to note, however, that the basic law of noncontradiction cannot itself be proven. Because it is self-evident, one must have to assume the law of noncontradiction in order to deny it. In other words, one must rely on the law of noncontradiction if one were to try to disprove it, which is ultimately circular and self-refuting. The basic principles of logic are among the transcendent first principles of reality. Being cannot both be, and not be at the same time and same way. Further, Aristotle claims that there must be some basic first principles of reality in order to prevent an endless regression of explanations that ultimately lead nowhere. He believes it was the mark of an uneducated person to not understand this point:

But we have now posited that it is impossible for anything at the same time to be and not to be, and by this means have shown that this is the most indisputable of all principles. Some indeed demand that even this shall be demonstrated, but this they do through want of education, for not to know of what things one should demand demonstration, and of what one should not, argues want of education. For it is impossible that there should be demonstration of absolutely everything (there would be an infinite regress, so that there would still be no demonstration); but if there are things of which one should not demand demonstration, these persons could not say what principle they maintain to be more self-evident that the present one. (525)

The laws of logic are important when one gives reasons why something is true or not, or demonstrating why something is, or is not the case. They simply provide the rational grounds for avoiding definitional equivocation1. These laws are foundational when trying to understand being because they indicate what can or cannot be, (they also help us understand what we can or cannot know). They are transcendent in nature because they are part of being. They indicate truths which all things participate in if they exist at all. Nothing whatsoever can both be, and not be in the same way and same relationship. In a very real way, the laws of logic are part of being and help one to know and understand truth, because they are fundamental properties of reality. Aristotle refers to the laws of logic in many places, primarily in his works of logic, called the Organon (Categories, On Interpretation, Prior Analytics, Posterior Analytics, Topics, and On Sophistical Refutations), and in his Metaphysics. Regarding the laws of logic themselves, he says that, “these truths hold good for everything that is, and not for some special genus apart from others” (524). In other words, the truths of logic reflect the order of being as a whole and hold for everyone regardless of time, place, or perspective.

Not surprisingly, Augustine takes a more theological position regarding the laws of logic and applies the laws of logic to science, ethics, and the existence of God2. Although Augustine rarely explicates the laws of logic directly, he does believe that logical reasoning deals with the question of how truth may be discovered (319). He thinks that the Greek philosophers who first discovered the laws of logic are essentially correct because they “made efforts to discover the hidden laws of nature and the right and wrong in ethics, and in dialectic what was consequent according to the rules of logic and what was inconsequent and erroneous” (191). He also believes that philosophy has three branches or areas of investigation and that logic is one of these fields of study: “…philosophers have aimed at a threefold division of science, or rather, were enabled to see that there was a threefold division (for they did not invent, but only discovered it), of which one part is physical, another logical, the third ethical” (389). The natural (physical), rational (logical), and moral elements of philosophy have being in focus in some way, just as the field of ethics has to do with the discovery of right or wrong actions, the possibility of natural law, and the being of moral life—questions about whether or not humans are moral beings, rests upon metaphysical assumptions of freedom, the will, and what it means to be human and to flourish in this world. (Although it is beyond the scope of this essay, both Aristotle and Augustine believe that there are metaphysical foundations to the science of ethics.) For Augustine, however, the ultimate ground of all reason, logic, and ethics is found in the existence of God and is in agreement with the ancient Jewish understanding of God as the “ground of being3.” Augustine explains this position when he says, “And yet the validity of logical sequences is not a thing devised by men, but is observed and noted by them that they may be able to learn and teach it; for it exists eternally in the reason of things, and has its origin with God” (734). Augustine believes that logic is a natural part of reality.

Interestingly, Augustine applies the law of noncontradiction when it comes to the nature and existence of the universe. He believes that the universe did not create itself:

Earth and the heavens also proclaim that they did not create themselves. “We exist,” they tell us, “because we were made. And this is proof that we did not make ourselves. For to make ourselves, we should have had to exist before existence began.” And the fact that they plainly do exist is the voice which proclaims this truth. (114)

Augustine is simply making the point that something cannot exist before it exists. If something did exist before it existed, it would have to be, and not be at the same time and same way, which is impossible according to the law of noncontradiction. In order for the universe to create itself, it must be before it is. Augustine thinks that self-creation violates the law of noncontradiction. But in a larger perspective, Augustine agrees with Aristotle, that the principles of logic are properties of being because they exist eternally in the “reason of things” (734). For each thinker, at least one way being corresponds to reality is through the laws of logic, the first metaphysical principles of existence.

Why does one find so much overlap and commonality between Augustine and Aristotle? It is important to note that Augustine does not always follow Plato exactly. (I have written more about how Augustine modifies his Platonism, here.) As with Plotinus, he makes changes to his Platonism to better take account of reality. Augustine modifies his Platonism by placing forms or essences in the particular things—at least when it comes to describing change in physical reality4. Augustine believes that the form must be in the material object itself in order to account for change. “There can be no change where there is no form” (129), according to Augustine. This parallels exactly what Aristotle holds about nature and reality in general. Augustine realizes that without the potentiality of form, something can not change. If the acorn does not have the form and potency of the oak tree, it will not grow into a majestic oak tree. Augustine, then, has a higher respect for physical reality than Plato. That is why he can conclude that logic and truth are properties of being which reside in the nature of things. Aristotle, of course, agrees with this line of thought. Plato, however, would disagree due to his strict emphasis on the Forms and his “divided line” of reality5.

Questions of being, truth, and correct reasoning underlie humanity’s most important concerns and conversations about the meaning of reality and one’s place within it. Without the ability to reason correctly, investigations and discussions of perennial questions would lapse into conceptual incoherence, and it would be impossible to discuss anything in a meaningful way. In different ways, both Aristotle and Augustine help one to realize that truth is essential when it comes to understanding reality, and logic is a helpful tool that allows one to discover these most basic and ultimate concerns.

Works Cited

Aristotle. The Works of Aristotle: 1. Great Books of the Western World. Vol. 7. Encyclopedia Britannica, Inc., 1999.

Augustine. The Confessions, The City of God, On Christian Doctrine. Great Books of the Western World. Vol. 16. Encyclopedia Britannica, Inc., 1999.

1 Although there are places when much common ground is possible in different positions, the laws of logic simply point out that only one thing or concept can be what it is at a time. If equivocation occurs the argument or discussion looses conceptual coherence and language becomes meaningless.

2Aristotle, however, believes that theology is a branch of metaphyics, see his Metaphysics, book I.3 and book VI.1.

3God’s self-disclosure to Moses in Exodus 3:14, “I am who I am” is generally understood to mean that God is the ground of all being. Another valid translation of the verse is “I am who causes to be.”

4While it is true that Augustine, as a Platonist, places the ultimate forms in the mind of God, in several places he has to modify his Platonism to account for physical change, which Plato is unable to do. For the brevity of this essay, I can only provide one example from Augustine here.

5Plato’s “divided line” is in book six of the Republic, Vol. 6, pages 386 – 387.

Intellectual History, Metaphysics, Philosophy, Uncategorized

Aristotle and Augustine on Being, Truth, and Logic: Part Two

by Dave Seng

Note: The first part of the series can be found here. In that post, we explored some possible overlap between Aristotle and Augustine and the nature of being. In this post, we will continue the conversation as it relates to being and truth.

The first theme one comes to is the relationship between truth and being—an examination of the connection between what is, with what is true1. Aristotle and Augustine ground the truth of things in being, or reality. For example, Aristotle in his Metaphysics makes the connection between that which is and that which is true:

It is right also that philosophy should be called knowledge of the truth. For the end of theoretical knowledge is truth, while that of practical knowledge is action (for even if they consider how things are, practical men do not study the eternal, but what is relative and in the present). Now we do not know a truth without its cause; and a thing has a quality in a higher degree than other things if in virtue of it the similar quality belongs to the other things as well (e.g. fire is the hottest of things; for it is the cause of the heat of all other things); so that that which causes derivative truths to be true is most true. Hence the principles of eternal things must be always most true (for they are not merely sometimes true, nor is there any cause of their being, but they themselves are the cause of the being of other things), so that as each thing is in respect of being, so is it in respect of truth. (512)

Aristotle believes there is a universal and transcendent quality to truth and many different things can participate in truth or be called true. Aristotle indicates that universal things, like being or truth, are in some sense eternal, or transcendent, because they are what particular things, which are temporal and always changing, participate in. If there is something that demonstrates truth, there must be a higher source which is the cause of that truth, because Aristotle is interested in investigating the primary causes of things. Similarly, in prayer-like fashion to God, Augustine writes in his Confessions:

I looked at other things too and saw that they owe their being to you. I saw that all finite things are in you, not as though you were a place that contained them, but in a different manner. They are in you because you hold all things in your truth as though they were in your hand, and all things are true in so far as they have being. Falsehood is nothing but the supposed existence of something which has no being. (63, Emphasis added)

At least two things are important in these passages. First, each thinker holds that the being of things are true in as much as they correspond to reality. And second, it is the eternal or transcendent things which provide the foundation for the things of this world. What is it these philosophers are trying to explain? One of the central concerns for the metaphysician is to get the terms “is” and “is not” correct. If one does not get the nature of reality right, she runs the risk of getting everything else about it wrong. Augustine reminds readers that things are true in so far as they have being, and false if they have no being. And Aristotle makes a similar claim when he says that as each thing is in respect of being, so is it in respect to truth. Aristotle puts a finer point on this concept when he says, “Again, ‘being’ and ‘is’ mean that a statement is true, ‘not being’ that it is not true but false” (538). Augustine and Aristotle are telling readers that a thing (or perhaps concept) must correspond to reality in order to be considered true. If something has no being or actuality in reality, it is not true. (For Aristotle, that which is “act” or “in act” is that which has existence or participates in existence.) This is simply a restatement of the correspondence theory of truth—truth is that which corresponds to reality. Truth is grounded in being or reality. Each thinker agrees with this. But do they have good reasons that support this position? Aristotle and Augustine would point to the laws of logic for support.

Aristotle and Augustine believe the basic laws of logic reflect the nature of reality (or being). The foundational laws of logic are generally considered to be the law of noncontradiction (nothing can both be, and not be at the same time and same way), the law of identity (a thing is what it is, a true proposition is true), and the law of excluded middle (something either is or is not, with nothing in between; a proposition is either true or false). The correspondence theory of truth depends on the laws of logic because they are basic properties of being. In addition, the laws of logic are considered among the first principles of being because all other laws and principles follow from them. The law of excluded middle and the law of identity follow from the law of noncontradiction. The law of noncontradiction holds primacy because it is a judgment between being and nonbeing, which is one of contradiction because one must first discern whether something is or is not. Augustine restates the law of noncontradiction and places it as the first principle of logic when he says, “For nonentity is contrary of that which is” (397). A judgment between compatibility or contradiction must first be made between what is and what is not. Speaking about the law of noncontradiction, Aristotle says that it is “naturally the starting-point even for all the other axioms” (525). Identity and excluded middle logically follow.

Next time, well look at another way the law of noncontradiction has primacy and Augustine’s use of it.

1A full conversation about the nature and metaphysics of truth is beyond the scope of this essay. Here, the primary focus is on descriptive truth—truth as an agreement between human cognition and external reality.

Works Cited

Aristotle. The Works of Aristotle: 1. Great Books of the Western World. Vol. 7. Encyclopedia Britannica, Inc., 1999.

Augustine. The Confessions, The City of God, On Christian Doctrine. Great Books of the Western World. Vol. 16. Encyclopedia Britannica, Inc., 1999.

Intellectual History, Metaphysics, Philosophy

Aristotle and Augustine on Being, Truth, and Logic: Part One

by Dave Seng

It is right also that philosophy should be called knowledge of the truth.–Aristotle

If truth is genuinely true, then it will be discovered regardless of one’s philosophical outlook or frame of reference. For example, Aristotle and Augustine have both discovered important metaphysical connections between the perennial questions of truth, reality or being, and the metaphysical principles that make being a possibility in the first place. Although it might be unusual to find connections between Aristotle and Augustine, due to their different methods and perspectives, it should not be surprising that they arrive at similar conclusions. Even though each thinker has a different metaphysical starting point and prior commitments (Augustine being a Platonist, and Aristotle utilizing a more empirical and inductive approach) there is still a lot of common ground between the two philosophers. As I will demonstrate, there are several reasons for this shared commonality. Each thinker has a commitment to discover truth and believes real knowledge about the world and ultimate reality is possible. Since reality, itself, is the determinant of order (not one’s theories about it, because those could be wrong), it should not be surprising that each thinker arrives at similar conclusions even if each is employing different approaches.1 The structure of reality is not different for either philosopher. Even though each thinker is working in different historical eras and regions of the world, truth still endures across time and space. In addition, it may be discovered that each philosopher’s approach, though different, is actually complementary to one another. For this essay, the specific overlapping areas between these thinkers are the themes of being, truth, and the role of logic as foundational to understanding reality. Hopefully, it will be discovered how these great ideas and intuitions of being, truth, and logic must be among the first principles of reality.

First, it is important to have a working definition of being before making an analysis of each philosopher’s position. Being is the object of study of metaphysics (the branch of philosophy which investigates the first principles and causes of all reality). Being is simply that to which existence belongs, and it is the task of the metaphysician to describe the causes, principles, and limitations which belong to different kinds of things. It is believed that understanding the modes and properties of being through the philosophical lenses of being and becoming, or being and non-being, that a greater apprehension of reality is achieved. Being is the exploration of reality, although, it may include more than physical reality because the metaphysician is also interested in how immaterial things like mathematics (including the axioms and laws of logic such as noncontradiction, identity, and excluded middle), the mind or intellect (or at least, objects of the mind), and moral truths such as justice, the good, or the concepts of right and wrong, relate to being. Metaphysicians explore the question, “Is there an ultimate foundation to these things that make them possible?” Therefore, when Aristotle, Augustine, or any other classical metaphysician discusses themes such as being and truth, or logic, they are investigating the first principles of reality and how they relate to the world around us.2

It is important to point out as Plato, Aristotle, Augustine, and Aquinas do, that there is a transcendent and universal quality to being. Briefly, these philosophers believe there is a transcendent nature to being because it is a universal concept just like truth, goodness, justice, and human nature (among others) are. These concepts are considered transcendent and universal because any number of particular things can participate in them. For example, many particular people can pursue justice and even experience instances of it. To the degree that a particular instance of justice is genuine, it resembles or takes part in the universal and transcendent definition of what it means to achieve justice which is true at all times and places. This is why an historian can say that a particular event in the past is just or unjust3. Similarly, when Aristotle says, “being is predicated of all things” (588), he is saying that being is a universally transcendent concept. Just like truth, justice, and the good, being must be transcendent and universal in order to make any meaningful statements about it.

We now have a reasonable understanding of what being is and why it is considered a universal. In part two we will examine the relationship between being and truth and explore important commonalities between the perspectives of Aristotle and Augustine.

1Reality, here, is used to indicate that which exists outside the human mind. In this sense, reality is the determinate of order because sometimes there is a real difference between appearance and reality, just as there is a difference between our theories of reality (epistemology) and reality itself (ontology). Moving on in this essay, however, the term “being” will be used to include all of reality which can be divided along the lines of subjective and objective, mental and external, actual and possible, and so forth.

2Although there were those before him who touched on the question, Aristotle posed the question of being this way, “And indeed the question which was raised of old and is raised now and always, and is always the subject of doubt, viz. What being is, is just the question, what is substance” (Vol. 7, 550). In this passage, some translations describe “substance” as “beingness” which might be more helpful. Substance, of course, for Aristotle was a combination of form, or essence, and matter (essence being the limiting factor of matter). Nonetheless, the question of being is a perennial one.

3Here, it is claimed that although the past no longer exists, it is a real object of study and perceptual thought and, therefore, has reality. That is, it has being and is related to being even though it is no longer in act or has actual existence. Humans are cognitively wired in some way to discern the past. Moral truths apply to history because of their transcendent nature.

Intellectual History, Metaphysics, Philosophy

Aristotle’s Actual Answer to Plato

by Dave Seng

Science can never dispense with Reality in the metaphysical sense of the term. — Max Planck

In many introductions to philosophy courses and textbooks, it is typical, to begin with Plato and Aristotle. The textbook or instructor always begins by comparing and contrasting the differences each thinker had regarding the ultimate nature of reality. This is done for good reason and is important for a foundational understanding of philosophy itself. I have covered these differences in my writings (here and here). It is correct to say that Plato believed in an ultimate transcendent realm of the forms (or universals, or Ideas), while Aristotle, his student, stressed the concrete nature of reality itself and the fact that forms and essences are in the objects themselves. In this sense, concrete means “grown together” or the “coalition of particular things”. For Aristotle, all physical objects have an essential nature to them, which makes them the kind of thing they are. “How else would we understand what a horse is without the nature of the horse inherently existing in the horse itself”? Aristotle would ask. A dead horse is a corpse, not a horse. Horseness is the formal constituent element of the horse just as humanity is the shared essential nature of President Trump, Queen Elizabeth II, and Dave Mustaine. Of course, essence is not limited to living things but that is a topic for another post. The broader point is that being is common to all things and I think that is Aristotle’s real answer to Plato. It is Plato’s misplaced universal. It is an answer which goes beyond the common textbook discussion.

Aristotle’s actual answer to Plato rests in a passage from his Metaphysics, Book VI, chapter 1. In his quest for the universal and the unity of being, Aristotle explains that the concept of being goes beyond mere genus and nature:

One might raise the question whether first philosophy is in any way universal or is concerned merely with some genus and some one nature. In the case of the mathematical sciences, their objects are not all treated in the same manner; geometry and astronomy are concerned with some nature, but universal mathematics to all. Accordingly, if there were no substances other than those formed by nature, physics would be the first science; but if there is an immovable substance, this would be prior, and the science of it would be first philosophy and would be universal in this manner, in view of the fact that it is first. And it would be the concern of this science, too, to investigate being qua being, both what being is and what belongs to it qua being.

Aristotle was right. All the immediate objects of human cognition are sensible things. In response to Plato’s notion of transcendent forms, Aristotle would reply that being itself is universal because it is common to all things. Being is common to all because it can be applied to any act of existing (in Aristotelian terms, “to be in act” means to exist). Additionally, to exist means to stand out of nothing, and to exist means to have being. Being is the universal that participates in all concretely existing things. That there is a metaphysical reality uniting all physical things should not be a surprise to modern readers. The German physicist and mathematician Max Planck said something very similar, “Metaphysical reality does not stand spatially behind what is given in experience, but lies fully within it” (Planck, Scientific Autobiography, 98, italics in the original). Planck was certainly a kindred spirit with Aristotle.

Aristotle teaches us, in response to Plato, that since metaphysics studies beings insofar as they are beings, the science of first philosophy will always have being in the concrete as its subject matter. The true universal of being in itself, understood in the concrete sense, is common to all. This, at least in part, is what unites the one with the many, and one of the most significant insights Aristotle shared with the Western intellectual tradition. Aristotle brings us the missing piece of reality which Plato missed. The study of being as being is the true science of metaphysics.